iPod Giveaway #5: The Great Unknowns

Original illustration by Michael Schwab.For the 5th Monthly Mike Industries iPod-A-Month Creativity Competition, we’re going to keep it extremely simple. So simple, in fact, that you aren’t even the one who has to be creative. The winner of this competition will be the person who posts the best site I’ve never seen in the comments.

If you have a site you’d like to nominate, by all means do, but please no self-promotion whatsoever. If all goes well, we’ll have a nice littlehuge page full of inspiration by the time everyone’s done.

Here are the rules:

Post the URL on the first line. If you can write a lick of HTML, try to link it properly. Here’s how — <a href="http://www.theurlofthesite.com">Site Title</a>

Post an explanation of exactly one sentence or one word (or none at all). Anything more than one sentence will be disqualified.

On or around midnight on the last day of AugustMonday, August 22nd, I will close the contest and pick my five favorites.

Helpful hint: If the site you submit requires 20 minutes of time just to figure out what’s going on, I probably won’t get past the first minute.

RULE CLARIFICATION: You can post something you’ve worked on, but anything that leads overtly back to you (like submitting your blog or portfolio) will be considered self-promotion and disqualified. Many thanks… great entries so far!

UPDATE: I’m shortening the entry period to Monday, August 22nd to keep the list at something close to a manageable level.

Perhaps more of interest for it’s Zen Garden-inspired skinnable CSS design (over 10 skins so far and we’ve only been going three weeks) than it is for it’s content – unless you’re a gamer, that is – Cyberscore v3 is the result of five months work rebuilding a fallen high scores archive.

Heavans-Above Iridium flares site
It lets you find the time and location of iridium flares, brief flashes of light caused by reflections off satellites, based on your location in the world (in this case, Seattle).

TiddlyWiki
Let’s try functionality over form; it’s a wiki, it’s a blogger, it’s a non-linear “notebook,” it’s entirely self-contained in one file, needs no server-side logic, and requires only a browser to use – save a copy of the page locally, and you’re good to go.

So many websites are visually loud, eveything shouting at the viewer, trying to grab our attention. This website is the gentlest and most personal site I have found. The images are moving and very personal.

inventor, mega-multi-instrumentalist, star of Petticoat Junction and of many, many Westerns — quite a character (and check out the free mp3s: “music and songs” > scroll down > “Samples Of Smiley’s Music”)

Adam, the creator and administrator of this fun and very busy web site, has coded the fastest and most elegant site/forum architechture that I have ever had the pleasure to use (and it is still not for sale).

Nancy, Lex and I recently went to the Bahamas. (I’ve heard it’s better there.) We even invited my parents. Some might balk at the thought of bringing parents on vacation, but we have no such qualms. For one thing,…